domestic workers

“We no longer worry about not having enough money for food and other necessities,” says a woman who cares for an elderly client part time and cleans houses. But will a law that helped double her wages be tossed out or made permanent?

The plays that wind up getting performed emerge from group storytelling and are a form of people’s theater. “This is a way to help household workers to stand up and make their voices heard,” says the group’s founder. “This is what I want.” Translation assistance by Yuan Ye.

If you reach retirement age without any Social Security checks to keep you going, it often means you just keep on doing the same unpaid or low-wage work. “These women are an invisible population,” says the leader of an advocacy group.

Parenting and pre-K politics are getting more co-ed but the stark reality is that the people who are helping out in the homes, day care centers and early-education classrooms are almost entirely female. Their taken-for-granted status is getting glaring.

The new wage and overtime protections don’t take effect for another year but the government has begun sorting out what it means, to whom. Staffing agencies are most affected but private employers should also keep records.

The government shutdown held up Labor Department webinars about the new home health care ruling that takes effect Jan. 1, 2015. Advocates say they will press various agencies to explain the ruling to the public.

The sponsorship system for foreign workers is like modern-day slavery, particularly for the 200,000 female domestic workers in Lebanon, say critics. They want to stop employers from seizing passports and operating outside the labor laws.

Philippine female workers number over a million. Each one has a unique story but taken together they form a fabric of survival, desperation and hope. For those with children, the struggle with estrangement can be intense.

The women who gather on these two street corners of New York are looking for day work as housekeepers. The territory comes with harassment and haywire scheduling. Hurricane Sandy blew a different type of cleanup work their way, but only a few dare to give it a try.

A Filipina trafficked by a Kuwaiti diplomat spoke out last week about her abuse. A New York advocacy group that helped her win a settlement is staging a Sept. 21 demonstration to prod her country’s U.S. consulate to help victims like her.

In Case You Missed It

It is being hailed as the most progressive state policy so far, going further than New Jersey, California and Rhode Island in various respects. But its showcase potential won’t be tested until the program gets going in 2018.